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Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Where is the design leadership in Wellington?

A little disappointed by some of my colleagues voting against my amendment on the proposed Convention Centre. I moved that we require that the design for this important public building be "high quality". I didn't even require that it be iconic.

But some of my colleagues felt that this shouldn't be a requirement and that the architects would deliver. The problem with this approach is that so often Council officers are not able to convince developers to produce high quality buildings. There is absolutely no guarantee that the building will be high quality. This will be up to the developer.

Great cities require leadership to ensure that public buildings create heritage and a legacy for the next generation. Unfortunately, the opportunity to create that legacy was missed tonight.